Puppet Theatre

THE EPHEMERAL AND MECHANICAL Puppet Theatre

In 1938 in Bratniak of the Academy of Fine Arts in Matejko Square in Cracow Tadeusz Kantor together with a group of students (Erna Rosenstein, Jadwiga Madziarska, Jerzy Zitman, Zenobiusz Zwolski) presented a puppet performance “The Death of Tintagiles” based on M. Maeterlinck’s play.

After many years the artist recollects:(…) In the years 1937 -38, when I staged “The Death of Tintagiles”, I was a victim of abstract fascinations, an admirer of Malewicz, Mondrian, Klee, of the pure forms created by Gropius, Moholy-Nagy, Schlemmer… I was a constructivist, but then started wondering where to locate the great mystery of small dramas by Maeterlinck, of excommunicated symbolism, of Kafka’s anxiety. I was wondering what I was looking for in the crypts where Polish kings had been buried, or in the yard full of rubbish and nettles, where the poetry of Bruno Schulz rests… That production of mine was presented only once (…).